Indian star Kom misses Rio chance
Roach keen as Pacquiao mulls Olympic bid
BEIJING, March 31, (Agencies): India’s five-time world boxing champion and sporting emblem Mary Kom lost to Ren Cancan of China on Thursday, missing a key chance to qualify for the Rio 2016 Olympic games.
Ren — three times a world champion herself — won a unanimous decision from the judges in their women’s flyweight semifinal at the Asia Oceania Olympic qualifying tournament on home turf in Qian’an.
Women finalists at the event get a place in the Olympic tournament whether they win or lose, so Thursday’s victory secured Ren’s ticket to Rio.
Chinese fans cheered on the local hero with chants of “Jia you!”, which literally translates as “Add oil!” but roughly means: “You can do it!”
Kom struggled to connect, falling briefly to her knees at one point in the fourth round, but will have two more chances to qualify for Rio at the world championships in May and in a competition in Azerbaijan in June.
Veteran trainer Freddie Roach has vowed to back Manny Pacquiao if the boxer decides to take advantage of rule changes which could see professional fighters allowed to take part in this summer’s Olympics.
Pacquiao said Wednesday he is yet to decide on whether he will pursue a spot in the Philippines Olympic team, appearing to pull back from an earlier statement to AFP in which he said he would be honoured to fight in Rio.
“I’m not saying a yes or a no”, Pacquiao told reporters. “I’m not closing the door. I have to think about it and I’m still thinking about it. It’s good to let professionals in the Olympics”.
The eight-time world champion said earlier this month he had been “personally invited” to Rio by Wu Ching
Kuo, president of the International Boxing Association (AIBA) — the governing body for amateur boxing.
Proposed changes to AIBA statutes, set to be put to a vote at a special congress of AIBA confederations at the end of May, could leave Olympic eligibility in the hands of the national boxing federations.
French swimmer Yannick Agnel is unlikely to defend his 200-meter freestyle Olympic title after a timing con-
troversy ruled him out of contention.
Agnel posted the third best time at the French championships on Wednesday behind Jeremy Stravius
and Jordan Pothain, although TV images appeared to show that he touched the wall in second.
Agnel’s coach, Lionel Horter, launched a protest which was dismissed by the race jury. Agnel is now expected to appeal the result to the French Olympic committee.
Neither Starvius nor Pothain managed to clock the minimum time of 1 minute, 46.06 seconds set by the French federation for automatic Olympic selection but the first two swimmers can still make the cut through their placings.
Olympic champion Lisa Carrington will headline a small New Zealand flatwater kayaking team at the Rio de Janeiro Olympics, with the country sending a women’s K4 squad for the first time.
The 26-year-old Carrington, who won the K1 200 metres gold in London, has also been selected in the K1 500 event, having won both races at last year’s world championships in Milan — just the third woman to achieve the feat.
Carrington is one of New Zealand’s top picks for gold in Rio, having been unbeaten in the K1 200 for five years.
The selection of the K4 500 boat of Jaimee Lovett, Caitlin Ryan, Aimee
Fisher and Kayla Imrie was especially pleasing for Canoe Racing New Zealand (CRNZ), given the crew had only been together for less than 18 months.
“We’re delighted to see the investment in our women’s programme paying off and our athletes getting the chance to show what they’re capable of at the highest level”, CRNZ chief executive Mark Weatherall said.
“New Zealand has a proud Olympic kayaking history and we’re excited to see that continue”.
It is the first time New Zealand has sent a K4 crew to the Olympics since Barcelona in 1992 when a men’s team made the semi-finals.
New Zealand’s K4 1000 men’s team won gold in Los Angeles in 1984 when the kayaking team also won three other gold medals, with Ian Ferguson winning three.
Marty McDowell is the sole male competitor selected for Rio, in the men’s K1 1000. It will be his first Olympics.
Australian star centre Lauren
Jackson retired from an almost 20-year international basketball career because of injury Thursday, saying she was heartbroken not to go to the Rio Olympics.
The 34-year-old, a four-time Olympic medallist, first represented Australia as a 14-year-old in the under-20s side before joining the national team at 16.
OLYMPICS
“It breaks my heart that I can’t be there (in Rio)”, an emotional Jackson said at a press conference in Canberra, as she spoke about not being able to sufficiently recover from a 2014 knee injury to compete at the Games in August. “But I will be there supporting them (the Opals national team) in spirit and I know that they are going to get gold”.
The 1.96-metre (6ft 4ins) star was the first non-American and the youngest woman to be named Most Valuable Player in the United States’ WNBA league in 2003 when she was with Seattle Storm.
She has also played in China’s women’s basketball league with Heilongjiang, in South Korea for Samsung Bichumi, in Europe for Spartak MR and Ros Casares Valencia, and in Australia for the Canberra Capitals.
At the Olympics, Jackson won silver medals in 2000, 2004 and 2008, and a bronze in 2012.
“When I first saw Lauren and what she could do on the basketball court, I knew she was someone special”, Basketball Australia’s high-performance general manager Jan Stirling, a former Opals head coach, said in a statement.
“Throughout all of her accomplishments she has remained humble and through a 19-year commitment to the Opals, she never missed a major event”.